ESRB won't adopt Europe's stricter loot box rating changes in the US
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which assigns age ratings to video games in the US, recently informed The Game Business that it has no plans to give higher ratings to titles with microtransactions, loot boxes, and other online features. Germany's ratings board began the practice in 2023, with other...
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Jury struggles to reach verdict in social media addiction trial against Meta and YouTube
Jurors did not say whether the holdout relates to Meta or YouTube, but Kuhl told them to keep deliberating and warned that if they cannot reach a verdict, that part of the case will have to be retried before a new jury.
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Crimson Desert dev apologizes for AI art slop, promises to add Intel Arc GPU support
In a pair of recent statements, developer Pearl Abyss explained that recently discovered AI-generated placeholder art in Crimson Desert accidentally ended up in the final game. The company also promised to optimize the title for Intel Arc graphics soon, reversing its stance on the architecture.
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Steve Wozniak says he's "disappointed a lot" by AI and rarely uses it
In a CNN interview in which he was asked about Apple's upcoming 50th anniversary and how the company has shaped the tech industry, Wozniak was asked what excites and scares him about AI.
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High school student develops membrane-free filter that removes most microplastics from water
As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, Heller's interest in water treatment began close to home in Warrington, Virginia, after she read a local newspaper story about contamination in her neighborhood's drinking water. Tests had found high levels of PFAS and microplastics, and officials made clear that no government money would be...
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Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus Review: They Did It
Intel's Core Ultra 5 250K Plus fixes what the 200 series got wrong, delivering blistering productivity performance and competitive gaming at $200, making it one of Intel's most compelling budget CPUs yet.
"We've achieved AGI," says Nvidia CEO, but his own examples suggest otherwise
In a separate conversation, he struck a different note, chastising engineers who underuse AI tools and warning he would be "deeply alarmed" if they were not spending enough on the very systems he had just suggested were already intelligent. The tension between those remarks – one heralding the dawn of...
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How BYD engineered breakthrough five-minute EV charging
Earlier this month, BYD revealed that its latest Flash Chargers can deliver up to 1,500 kilowatts – roughly four times the power of the "hyper-fast" 350-kW systems common in the US. In tests, select BYD batteries charged from 10% to 70% in about five minutes and from 10% to 97%...
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Operation Alice: The dark web isn't as hidden as it seems, as global crackdown shows
Europol recently unveiled "Operation Alice," a major effort to dismantle a large network of fraudulent websites hidden within the dark web. The investigation began in 2021 and initially focused on a platform named Alice with Violence CP. In the end, the operation took down one of the largest dark web...
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Windows 11 users are still fixing the Start menu with third-party tools
While Microsoft rethinks where they've failed with Windows 11, many users rely on tools like Open Shell , Start11 , StartAllBack , and ExplorerPatcher to take back control of the UI. Open Shell remains a free favorite with a customizable Windows 7-style menu, while Start11 and StartAllBack offer more polished tweaks for modern systems. ExplorerPatcher rounds things out as another powerful free option.
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